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March 17, 2014
The mindful recruiter
By Peter Weddle for BioSpace.com
Biopharma recruiters fill one of the most stressful and least appreciated jobs in the workplace. They are bombarded with requirements, complaints, constraints, and administrivia, and they get precious little support, recognition, or gratitude in return. How can we do our best work in such a hostile environment? With mindfulness.
Mindfulness has suddenly caught the attention of working Americans. It’s as if we’ve reached a tipping point in our hyper-paced and ultra-demanding careers and have collectively begun to search for ways to find some calm and quiet in our work. We know we can’t turn off the spigot of day-to-day requisitions, job postings, social media connections, interviews, hiring manager conferences, and offer letters, but we also know we have to find a balance to it all or we’re likely to burn out.
Wikipedia defines mindfulness as “the focusing of attention and awareness, based on the concept of mindfulness in Buddhist meditation.” It’s now practiced in many places, however, without a religious context. It can sound a little “new agey” at first, but its principles are both physiologically and psychologically sound.
I call mindfulness in recruiting a way to “pay attention to ourselves.” It is an alternative approach to working in the pressure-packed, adrenalin soaked culture of today’s “doing more with less” workplace. Mindfulness is not a prescription for ignoring our job, but instead a permission slip to care for ourselves—so we can do a better job.
Mindfulness provides a set of practices for reducing job-induced pressure and stress. It is a schedule of breaks built, not around the water cooler or Facebook, but around the soothing effects of body rhythms and peacefulness. Yes, it’s meditation, but it’s meditation with an occupational purpose—to counter the injurious effects of roadblocks we face in the present and to fend off the effects of other roadblocks we are likely to confront in the future.
Paying attention to yourself
Biopharma recruiters face a daily obstacle course of insensitive or inept hiring managers, unrealistic or back-breaking requisitions, and mind-numbing or convoluted administrative requirements. It can sap our self-confidence, commitment to excellence, and even our ability to care about our job.
Working harder doesn’t redress those symptoms. Only paying attention to ourselves can do that. How? By interspersing our work with periods of self-rejuvenation. Research has shown that adults need a break every 90 minutes or so, if they are to keep themselves stimulated and performing at their peak. And, they also need such breaks to repair themselves after the particularly stressful events that can occur from time-to-time in any career.
The mindful recruiter uses these breaks for meditation. They focus on their breathing—on listening to the rhythm of their body. If their respiration is at its natural pace, they concentrate on simply experiencing that gift of life. And, if it’s ragged or rapid from the stress of the day, they slowly and steadily move it back to its natural state.
In both cases, they inhale to reinforce their spirit and sense of purpose in their work and exhale to eradicate the toxins of stress and anxiety that the workplace has produced. With each breath in, they say quietly to themselves I remember who I am, and with each breath out, they say I rejoice in who I am.
So, if you’re stressed from the workload of a seemingly interminable list of requisitions, take a periodic break to pay attention to yourself. And, if you feel like you’ve been tossed in a pressure cooker after a meeting with some hiring manager, take a break then, as well, and take care of yourself.
Stress, anxiety, and pressure—they all cloud our ability to recognize or remember our inherent value as a person and our contribution at work. Mindfulness is a way for recruiters to recapture both in the daily rhythms of their life.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com
Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired & Not Be Fired, WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet, The Career Activist Republic, and The Career Fitness Workbook: How to Find, Win & Hold Onto the Job of Your Dreams Get them at Amazon.com and www.Weddles.com today.
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